ENVIRONMENTAL SERVICES DEPARTMENT

The Environmental Services Department is responsible for many of the services taken for granted in day to day life.

Street cleaning (over 700kms in total) and refuse collection, both household and trade (which amounts to more than 30,000 bins each week), are co-ordinated through this Department, as is the Parks and Cemeteries team, with responsibility for maintaining more than 400 acres of Council controlled grounds in the area. Civic amenity sites at seven locations also provide disposal and recycling facilities. Indeed, recycling has become one of the Department's key focuses in the last number of years as it drives forward the implementation of its Waste Management Strategy and dramatic rises in recycling rates (from 10% in 2003 to 25% by the end of 2005) have followed the introduction of blue and brown bin kerbside recycling schemes.

A planned maintenance service for the Council's 130 properties and sites across the Borough, including 40 playgrounds and an events support service, is provided by the Works section, based at the Council's North Road Depot in Newtownards, as is the team in the Stores section. Stores is responsible for sourcing, storing and allocating stock items across the range of Council's Departments, for the issue of domestic "wheelie bins", the control of the weighbridge and Council fuel facilities.

Building Control is also administered through the Environmental Services Department. Officers in this section are responsible for thousands of building control applications and building inspections every year, and also deal with street naming, postal numbering, property certificates and dangerous structures.

The Environmental Health section is also part of this Department and its work continues to be wide-ranging and to encompass a number of areas from food safety and pollution control to occupational health and safety and consumer protection.

STEM Project - help available for local businesses to implement environmental management systems
Environmental Health is also involved in the STEM (Sustainable Together Through Environmental Management) Project which offers free technical advice and guidance to small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) to help them improve their environmental performance.

To find out more, contact the STEM Project on 00 44 28 37 515810 or visit the website www.stemproject.com

The Director of Environmental Services is John Rea, Tel: 028 9182 4014, E: Director of Environmental Services